Nest of Eggs - Return of King Arthur
by Academyofangels
Summary: Albion has been through World wars and Civil wars, but the promise of King Arthurs return is unfulfilled. Leaving Merlin wondering what will bring about the return of King Arthur? Magic has returned to Albion and torn it apart, there is no Government just chaos. The only people who can bring back peace and unite Magic and the modern age is Merlin and Arthur. Please Review!
1. Chapter 1

Deep underground in Britain's caves lies a nest, undisturbed for centuries. Until one day when a boy in a black hoodie and a torch goes caving. As he looks around the dark cave he sees dozens of eggs, of many wonderful shapes and sizes. Something deep within him speaks to him, compels him to say words he doesn't know, words of a forgotten language. In response to his words, large cracks formed on the eggs, the cave trembles with immense power, and dozens of Dragons burst out of the eggs, the young boy had seen nothing like these creatures in his life before and never felt such power. Terrified of the magnificent creatures he escaped the cave as hastily as possible, not stopping for breath. He didn't understand what he'd unleashed upon the world. This boy is the first male to be born in his family for centuries, he inherited the power over Dragons, a Dragon lord, from his ancestors, it's curious how all this had happened, and a few people say it's fate.

When they surfaced, the et fire to buildings and occupying the world. Magic floods into the land. More sorcerers are born and creatures of magic, good and evil. Any fool could sense it in the air, sacred land once again sacred. Panic spread, these creatures were unimaginable to these people, and what people don't understand often scare them. People of science didn't understand it because there was no scientific explanation. The government wasn't prepared to handle events; they tried to control the problem. When they couldn't, they persecuted magic, tried to annihilate the problem, but it was too late, magic was back for good.

The government collapsed, no one is sure how it happened, they went silent, stopped giving instructions, houses of parliament empty. That's when the gangs came to power, many had magical leaders who used their magic only for evil. They didn't care about leading people with kindness and justice, they only wanted power, they didn't recognize what it was to be true leaders. There were few gangs of normal people, but they hid from magic and destroyed it whenever they had the chance, they lived in fear. The land was in chaos, unity and peace long forgotten.

* * *

Tell me what you think of this story, any tips or pointers or even ideas are welcome. Thanks for reading :3


	2. Chapter 2

A figure sat on a bench overlooking the Lake,that had almost lost hope of Arthur rising again but is that something he wanted? it'd mean Britain would be in terrible danger, he didn't return during the civil war and World Wars so what would he return for? He desperately wanted to see his friend again, someone he dearly loved. All magical creatures died out many centuries ago, even though Gwen let magic users freely practice magic without fear, when she became Queen, with strict regulations to make sure it wasn't abused. However, the warlock never went back to Camelot instead he stayed here for many centuries, by the isle of the blessed. often wondering if he wasted his life waiting for the return of King Arthur.

The lake was still as always at this time of year. No breeze or clouds, just the sun which is incredibly rare for Britain. It was the dry kind of hot, the kind that makes you thirsty, and if sat out too long gives you a headache. A young girl with dark unruly hair and pigtails approached the rugged old man. "What are you doing?" The girl asks with big innocent blue eyes.

"Waiting." Merlin murmurs, looking at the girl out of the corner of his eye.

"What are you waiting for?" She interrogated further. Her eyebrows creased, eyes squinting from the sunlight.

"A friend." Merlin simply states the young girl scrunched her nose, she'd seen this man sit here for as long as she could remember. Always looking out on the lake, she found it silly he's been waiting so long, in her mind their obviously not coming.

"I don't think their coming." She responds the girl thought it was her job to tell this silly man if they didn't come last year be probably won't come today or tomorrow. Merlin smirks at the girl's brutal honesty "Well I have nothing better to do.".

"What's your name?" The small child inquires. "I'm Rachel." She liked making friends with everybody, she was very likable and good-natured, she came over because she'd always see the man sitting here. The girl assumed the man had lots of good stories, she found old people often do.

"I'm Merlin." He stuck his hand out to shake her small one. Rachel continues to ask him many more questions such as: How old are you? Have you ever been in love? What happened to her? Why are you always alone? Where's your family? Merlin answered these questions truthfully but changed some of the answers about his age. Later the girl's mother and brother came and found her, scolding her for walking off and talking to strangers. Something this 5-year-old had a terrible habit of doing. Then they left and he sat alone again.

* * *

12 years later

While sitting on the bank of the river, Merlin saw something move out of the corner of his eye. His head snapped round, blue eyes focusing on the foliage where the movement had come from, he slowly rose and walked over to the forest. Still looking carefully, he sees the head of a serpent; a leopards' body; a lions' back legs and rabbits' feet. Merlin knew it could only be one thing: The questing beast. It paced around the forest, making a low growling noise. This was a terrible omen, a sign of chaos, the old warlock remembered the last time that he had seen the beast and it resulted in Arthur's near death. It was surprising that there were still some around because he assumed all magical creatures died out when magic declined. why did the Questing Beast resurface now? he mulled over it for the rest of the day.

Merlin's body felt lighter and more free than in years, like when he was much younger. He could feel the magic vibrating off the walls as if about to burst out. Crystal cave, a place he hadn't been in centuries, the place where magic is believed to have begun. The warlock didn't remember actually going to the cave, but he knew there was a reason. A melodic voice spoke to him "Emrys the world will need you and Arthur again soon. You must bring Albion together and you must help the modern world coexist with magic. Your current form is weak and feeble and incapable of the task ahead of you, we'll return your form to a time when running was no bother."

"What if I fail?" Merlin asked.

"You can't afford to fail Emrys if you fail Albion will destroy itself. You and Arthur are Albion's only hope."

"I thought magic was over?" Merlin asked he hadn't sensed strong magic in a millennium.

"Magic will always come back, magic created this world. Now it's time for you to wake up, do us proud." The voice bidding farewell.

Merlin awoke, lying in bed for a few moments contemplating about the conversation. What would happen if magic came back now? How would people react? It's unpredictable. From what the voice in the cave said to him, it's not going to get a good reaction. The questing beast shouldn't be ignored, it means chaos. Suddenly it makes sense when magic comes back it's going to bring chaos. Merlin turned on the TV. It had hardly ever been used, reserved for nights when he was drowning in his thoughts and needed something to use to distract from his thoughts. After watching an episode of a random historical documentary the news came on. One of the main headlines of the evening read "Real-life Jurassic park", the news report was about these animals that have suddenly appeared in the sky. They assumed it's something like a pterodactyl, but Merlin knew what it was the moment he saw the footage ... Dragons. The warlock thought all dragons had died out, apart from maybe Aithusa. It was exciting, like when he saw Aithusa hatch from her egg, remembering the wave of relief when he rescued the egg. This must mean that there was another dragon lord, as only a dragon lord can summon a Dragon from their egg. How had this happened, all dragon lords were murdered during the great purge. This is what the voice told him about, Merlin decided to go to the lake, desperately trying not to give his hopes up. On the way to the lake, the reflection on the window caught his eye. There was a face he hadn't seen in years, his face from his younger years. Memories resurfaced of Camelot, Gaius, Gwen, the knights of the round table and most importantly Arthur.

However, there is no sign of Arthur for months and the world was falling apart. The government's attempts at containing the problem failed terribly, the dragons had decided to either hide in the forests or burn down the towns, cities or villages. The dragons couldn't be killed by guns or anything the government could throw at them. Unfortunately, that's not where the problem stopped. People began to show signs of amazing talents. A woman set fire to her house and everyone who witnessed it said the fire burst out of her hands, as she started chanting words and her eye's glowed. Some people with powers started terrorizing civilians. These people were powerful as they didn't need to learn the spells they were using, however, their talents were much more limited than Merlin's. It all got out of control very quickly, the government intervened less and less until the lights at the houses of parliament went out.

Only then did Arthur return, Merlin never left the lake since the dream. The radio would deliver news of everything that's happened, he became very sure that Arthur was going to return with every report. The warlock didn't even return home to sleep. One evening he had fallen asleep waiting when Merlin was suddenly jolted awake by being covered in icy water. Merlin gasped in shock from being covered in ice cold water. "Are you just going to lie there floundering about like a fish?" A voice mocked from above him. Merlin too ecstatic to be annoyed jumped to his feet suddenly and wrapped arms around the blonde. "Merlin. You're getting me wet. What's happening anyway?".


	3. Chapter 3

I'll be editing it so this isn't the final draft and there will be less dialogue.

* * *

"So, We have to unite all of 'Britain' without an Army or anything to help us?" The King summarised, highlighting the obvious flaws in their plans, he began pacing deep in thought. "We can't do it! It's completely hopeless!"

"Well, we have Excalibur." Merlin quietly interjected optimistically, but soon regretted interrupting once he saw the look on Arthurs' face, his narrowed eyes and tight lips. "Wow, thanks that makes the situation so much better, I have one sword... problem solved" A sarcastic sentence which finished with a smack to Merlins head. The situation did seem completely hopeless, and would be for ordinary people. How could they convince the whole of Britain to listen and follow them? How could they gain peoples trust an support?The pair stood in silence thinking of solutions to their problem, it was difficult to know where to start, it was such a complicated situation. "Where's the capital?" Arthur finally broke the silence. "London, why does it matter?" Merlin asked.

"Because Mer-lin that's where people will flock to and be the centre of power." The blonde aggressively explained. "We'll need to make allies, we should start with villages as they would be easier to take over." Merlin always enjoyed watching Arthur come up with battle strategy's, his eyebrows always creased slightly. They left Glastonbury and travelled along the motorway by foot, the usual hum of traffic a distant memory. It was going to be a long walk, and take a very long time when they walked past a field with horses and saw the magnificent creatures were alone and grazing on the dry grass, they were perfect brown fur shining in the sunlight. The boys 'borrowed' them, and thundered down the motorway on horses for a few miles. Soon they rode up to a turn off from the road, the horses had been riding for an hour and the horses were tired so the men decided to tie the horses off to rest. "What have you been doing all this time?" The king asked his loyal servant. "Don't tell me you've waited for me all this time." Arthur looked at Merlin, observing his manservant's reaction to this question, deep down he already knew the answer. It was confirmed his suspicions was true when the other man shifted uncomfortably, "You shouldn't have." Arthur quietly responded.

"I couldn't have gone back to Camelot without you." The warlock defending himself. He felt a little embarrassed for waiting so long, not knowing how Arthur would take what he told him 'probably make him feel special', Merlin smirked at his own thought. He couldn't have imagined life in Camelot without Arthur, not having to run around all the time, stopping Arthur from dying. waking Arthur up in the morning. He didn't know what he'd do with himself, he did feel a little bit sad about not going back for Gaius, as the years went by he was too embarrassed to suddenly go back.

"You didn't have to go back to Camelot." Arthur pushed, he felt the situation getting serious and decided to throw his shoe at Merlin's head, he didn't want Merlin to think he cared about him too much, resulting with an exclamation of pain from the warlock. They sat in silence looking over an empty service station. Merlin was about to bring up Gwen when Arthur suddenly announced "We should probably get some supplies." he stood up and started striding over to the Service station, Merlin gave a quick glance at the horse's but followed the Blonde man anyway. They traipsed into the manky building, it had been left for so long moss had started growing around the "automatic" doors, which were no longer functional and Arthur had to pry them open. Looking at all the food that had been left for what seems to have been left for several months was disappointing. "Well it seems to only safe stuff is anything drinkable. This is not going to work."

"The tins will be alright," Merlin informed Arthur, smiling and feeling pretty pleased with himself. Just as they started picking up tins they heard something run inside the building. Voices followed "Hurry up Jake... it's right behind us!" A female voice shouted.

"Why don't you just use magic?" A male voice responded, both the voices had to take deep breaths between words. However, what intrigued Merlin was what the male voice had just said, he hadn't met someone who could use magic in this time yet, he'd sensed it in the girl he met years ago but he doubted she could use it.

"Because mine's not strong enough Jake. Why don't you try and fight it?" The voices approaching where Merlin and Arthur were sitting, the warlock peered around the corner to catch a glimpse of these two people. The girl was in front, she had wild black hair which she'd tried to tame into two plaits, blue eyes and porcelain skin. The boy behind her actually looked very similar to Arthur, however, he looked much younger and wasn't as muscular, but still handsome. Arthur stirred beside him, as the teenagers ran past he grabbed them and pulled them behind the aisle. Flailing their arms and legs about, trying to attack the older man. "Stop struggling I'm trying to help you." Arthur hissed at them, they both relaxed realising it was just a man. As soon as their feet hit the ground they turned around to catch a view of their attacker. "Gee I'm sorry that my first reaction to something grabbing me is to attack it!" The girl sarcastically whispered, striding towards the king. However, her arm was caught by the boy and the girl relaxed and peered around the corner, her eyes widened. "Shit." she breathed.

"It's still out there?" Jake asked her. She nodded. "Rachel. What are we going to do?" the boy brushed his hand through his hair, breathing in deeply. The two older men were interested to find out what was following the teenagers, so they glanced around the corner and bounding towards them with tins and bits of mouldy food flying about was a Griffin.


	4. Chapter 4

The twins had never seen a Griffin before; it was like something out of Harry Potter, magnificent yet terrifying. The thing had started following them while they were driving down the motorway, to get away from it, they'd run into the service station to hide from it while stocking up on supplies. Sitting against the shelves of canned food, Rachel couldn't breathe, her cold hands clasped around her brother's hand, Jake gripped back painfully tight, his eyes wide, both of them were tense, Rachel's stomach twisted uncomfortably with anxiety, heart beating fast, and barely able to breathe, suddenly the cans on the shelves exploded covering all four of them in sauce. "What the-" Arthur exclaimed, wiping sauce from his face, then automatically glared at Merlin "Was this you?" his voice filled with venom. Merlin shifted to look at Arthur before making his sarcastic remark. "Sure, I saw a Griffin run towards us and I thought, let's make as much noise as possible."

The argument didn't go much further as the Griffin made a squawking noise, and came galloping towards them, eyes glinting with menace. Arthur unsheathed Excalibur and slowly rose to his feet muttering "I was hoping to avoid this." Before swinging into the attack, he made two testing swipes with his sword trying to get back in his groove of fighting (he had technically not fought for about 1500 years). The griffin's claws connecting with the weapon, in an awful clank. The other three just watched Arthur leap about and avoiding the griffin's attacks. Anyone could see Arthurs amazing swordsmanship, and how it had captivated Jake "Where did he learn to fight like that?" inquiring excitedly. He'd taught himself to use a sword, and never seen skill like this before. "His father taught him, he was the best in the land." The warlock answered. The griffin at this point had managed to slash Arthur across the cheek, but the King showed no sign of weakness just a mild surprise. Before he plunged Excalibur into the creature's chest, instantly killing it.

There was silence as the group stared at each other the Rachel stepped forward to inspect the beast, the silence was finally broken by Jake "Thatwassoawesomecanyouteachmehowtodothat!". His eyes wide with excitement.

"He's a little obsessed with sword fighting" Rachel explained, before scrunching her nose and throwing a "Nerd" at her brother.

"I am not a nerd! You're the nerd always reading your manga." Jake argued.

"If they're so nerdy why are you always borrowing them." They were about to launch into a massive argument. "Who are you two, exactly?" Arthur asked, breaking up the impending argument. Also, he was curious about the teenagers, and how they'd ended up being chased by a Griffin.

"I'm Rachel and this is my twin brother Jake." The wild-haired girl turned to face the two men. "Who are you?"

"I'm Arthur Pendragon and this is my manservant… Merlin." After discussing what they're doing and where they were going, Rachel had offered them transport to the next village over. Merlin and Rachel walked up ahead, Rachel excitedly asking about the Griffin and other mythical creatures, she had a passion for magic. Meanwhile, Arthur and Jake walked side by side awkwardly, "Our mother's name was Pendragon before she married." Jake said breaking the silence awkwardly as they walked towards the car. Arthur not knowing how to respond, sped up his pace to join Merlin and Rachel leaving an embarrassed Jake. "What is that?" He demanded with uncertainty, as his eyes settled on the small red car. He drew out his sword and hissed "Sorcery!". The group turned around and looked at Arthur, he felt his cheeks burning and looked at Merlin in a plea of help or an explanation which came from Rachel "Chill, it's just a car." Rachel giggled, opening the door and sliding in, her brother on the opposite side of the car "Now get in!" she ordered.

As Arthur walked to the car Merlin came up behind him and whispered: "I thought only the King gave orders." Earning another hit to the head. Rachel turned the keys as the engine roared to life, the car rattling and shaking as a foot pressed heavily on the pedal, the car lurches forward. Nearly colliding with a wall, but Rachel swings the car to the left and skids to a stop. "Are you trying to get us killed?!" exclaimed the King, the breathing of both passengers were rapid. Merlin and Arthur exchanged a look of utter peril.

"It's better than you could do." Retorted the dangerous teenager, rolling her eyes and sighing. Trying again to set off, this attempt was much more successful, however, in this case, it doesn't mean safer. The car zoomed down the motorway, nobody was not daring to say a word too frightened to distract this young driver. They just stared at her or the road, well everyone but Jake who was sitting there a stupid grin on his face, occasionally glancing at the two frightened passengers. "She never 'officially' got her licence," Jake informed Merlin and Arthur. "It was kind of cancelled when the government fell.".

"Arthur." Merlin worriedly asked Arthur. Arthur only replied with a glance.

"Arthur?" He tried again.

"What?" Arthur hissed.

"Can we hold hands?"

"Don't be such a girl Merlin."

* * *

Sorry, I've taken like 2 weeks to upload I had art and Drama exams and no time for writing. The next chapter will be longer.


End file.
